Japanese Ambassador to Vietnam, Mitsuo Sakaba, last week told Tuoi Tre that Japan expects all aid programs to be corruption free in Vietnam as part of its aid to the Mekong sub-region.

The ambassador said Japan had pledged an estimated US$1.3 billion for Vietnam for the 2009 fiscal year for infrastructure and climate change projects.

Japan’s 2009 fiscal year started on April 1 and will end on March 31 next year.

Vietnam is among the five Mekong region nations that Tokyo vowed to expand aid for, particularly in infrastructure and climate change at the first Japan-Mekong Summit held on November 6-7.

Japan pledged to inject $5.5 billion for the five riparian states of the Mekong River basin of: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam over the next three years.

Last December, Japan suspended aid to Vietnam after Japanese-based Pacific Consultants International executives admitted in a Tokyo court they had bribed a Vietnamese former director of Japan-funded projects in Ho Chi Minh City to win consulting contracts.

Japan’s ODA program to Vietnam was resumed in early April.

In recent decades, Tokyo has been the biggest donor outside to the Mekong sub-region, whose combined population exceeds 220 million; with a total GDP of more than US$400 billion. Japanese companies were also among the earliest foreign investors into the area.

But China's quest for resources and its outward investment drive of the past decade have enlarged its presence in Southeast Asia, Reuters reported.

Chinese companies have been investing aggressively in Laos and Myanmar, in dams, timber and mining. It is the third biggest investor in Laos and the fourth in Myanmar, Xinhua reported.

The Mekong sub-region is a development project mooted by the Asian Development Bank in 1992 that brought together the riparian states of the Mekong River basin, namely Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and China’s Yunnan province.

(Source: TuoiTre)